> Among the many problems with evolution are the questions it is unable to
> answer.

I would be careful with this line of reasoning. It is essentially a "you
don't know everything so you don't know anything" position. For example, one
could assert

"Among the many problems with the theory of Gravity are the questions it is
unable to answer."

If you were to assert that, because the current theory of Gravity is
incomplete or inaccurate in some places that Gravity does not exist, then
you would be a fool.

</Tongue-in-cheek humor here> And since there are questions that the
Theory of Gravity cannot answer, I invite you to show your equal disdain for
it by walking off the top of a tall building. After all, by your reasoning,
gravity must not exist, right? </End TIC>

But seriously, you have a much worse problem than with the Theory of
Evolution. For by your own reasoning which I reproduce exactly for your
benefit, your own faith is in jeopardy. For "Among the many problems with
Christianity are the questions it is unable to answer."

And a whole list of questions could -- and certainly would -- emerge! The
list would be endless, including the exact nature of the kenosis, the
conflicts between free will and predestination, etc. There have been wars
build on conflicts of theology concerning questions the Bible has no
complete answers for.

In fact, the problem of unanswered questions is much more of a difficulty
with Christianity than it is with Science. After all, Christianity is a
"Revealed Religion". Since the source of that Revelation is supposedly God
Himself, then leaving us with essential and important questions unanswered
is a potential argument against the reality of your Faith and mine.
Certainly, by your reasoning, Christianity should possess all of the
answers, right?

Yet we do not. And one of the largest questions challenging the reality of
your Faith is how you can remain so decidedly smug in your ignorance and
call it knowledge. That is a direct violation of the principles of faith
found in the Holy Scriptures, yet you ignore those principles daily in your
crusade against Evolution.

Unanswered questions are not a problem with Science. We explain things the
best we can with the evidence at hand. When more knowledge or better
explanations come into view, they tend to supplement and change our
explanations.

Why, a cursory reading of any popular science journal has new discoveries
in almost every issue, with a note on how the discovery addresses a
particular question or explanation in science. And very often, the assertion
is made that if the evidence is confirmed, it will require a change in a
certain part of the current theory.

And Science is happy, even eager, to accommodate! After all, the goal of
science is to progress from less knowledge to more knowledge, from less
understanding to more understanding. We already know that we don't know
everything -- unlike certain people who (on religious grounds) think they
have all knowledge and wisdom and power and might.

> Here they are, in order of importance:
>
> 1. How can life come from non-life?

You have for the umpteenth time confused abiogenesis with evolution. Let me
try to put it as plainly as I possibly can.

"Life from non-life" is not a part of the Theory of Evolution. Abiogenesis
is a separate field, still in its infancy, and will have unanswered
questions for many, many years. It is principally a chemical exploration of
conditions in the distant past -- and given developments in planetary
cosmology recently, I suspect there will have to be some changes in some of
their models of the early earth.

"Life from life, with modifications" describes the Theory of Evolution.
After all, you are different from your parents, and your parents were
different from their parents, ad infinitum. The changes from one generation
to the next were subtle. Yet they were there. The ToE describes the changes
in the characteristics of populations from one generation to the next.

You are on notice. You have been told the difference between evolution and
abiogenesis many times. Now pay attention. We will expect you to know the
difference from now on and to use the terminology correctly.

Still, to answer your question a bit more completely, life as we know it
follows the laws of chemistry even as non-life follows the laws of
chemistry. These laws are rather complex, and while the interactions of
elements and molecules are somewhat random, the chemical results are not at
all random.

That random interactions can produce terribly complex results can be found
in some toxic waste dumps. In certain dumps, chemicals have combined into
significantly more complex forms than the chemicals that were originally
dumped there. What formed was a product of chemistry. It depended upon the
chemicals present (both kind and quantity) and the heat energy available.
But the laws of chemistry guaranteed the result.

Now think. You believe that God created man from a clay mold that He
breathed life into. How did that breath create our physical systems from
undifferentiated clay? That is an unanswered question of Christianity, by
the way. But there is life from non-life.

For that matter, from where did God come? Your answer, of course, is that He
always existed. And yet, if life must come from somewhere, then so must have
He come from somewhere! Your own reasoning, sir -- your own reasoning.

And might not God, from Whom are all things, have been able to write the
laws of chemistry in such a way as to guarantee that "life" would emerge? Is
not God omnipotent? If He is, then He would have that ability to create such
laws.

There is no difficulty between faith in God and the Theory of Evolution, or
between faith in God and abiogenesis for that matter.

> 2. How could the Cambrian Explosion happen?

This is a question? The fact is that what we call the "Cambrian Explosion"
did happen!

There is a certain geologic strata we call "Precambrian" in which no life
remnants are found (or only the least complex). In the Cambrian strata --
which covers about a 50 million period.

And in fact, this is not a single strata or time period itself with
undifferentiated mixed-up forms. There are seven different subdivisions of
the period! I commend to you this site for study, should you decide to do
some:

But the fact is that some of the characteristics of life are reproduction,
adaptation, and a struggle to survive. And in the early earth, not every
environmental niche had been inhabited. There was plenty to be exploited.
And life gravitated to those niches where it could survive, and succeeding
generations became better adapted to those niches. After all, the better the
organism fits with its environment, the more likely it is to survive and
reproduce!

So there were environmental pressures toward fairly rapid evolutionary
changes.

And yes, we don't know all the answers. But that doesn't matter. We know
many things, and as time and investigation progresses we shall know more.

Does this frighten you? Man, learning on his own without the aid of a holy
book? Finding answers to questions in the world around him? Why should it?
If God created man with a brain, then is it a sin to use it? I should think
not!

> 3. How does evolution disprove ID?

Evolution does not disprove ID. ID is a weasel-word theology for those who
contend that we have reached the limits of our knowledge and must confine
all the rest of our unanswered questions to the Unknown "God did it"
explanation.

In point of fact, Michael Behe has admitted to belief in evolution,
including the common ancestry of man and ape! His beef is that God is left
out of science (since science cannot investigate the supernatural), and so
he wants to redefine science.

His problem, I suspect, is largely like your own. He perceives troubles in
the world with "evolutionary philosophy", not realizing that there are many
other troubles in the world that have nothing to do with this imaginary
construct. His objections to the ToE are not scientific, but theological.

The Dover case amply proved that ID is nothing but a theological attempt to
put religion back into the public schools. The goals of the Discovery
Institute and others like them are to reform society and government into a
more theocratic arrangement, intolerant of non-Christians or Christians who
do not agree with them, and imposing their concept of "morality" upon the
population.

However, shouldn't the question be, "How does ID disprove Evolution"? It
doesn't, of course. And despite objections, evolution still happens.

If God's hand is behind evolution (and I have no problem thinking that it
might be so), there is no evidence of it. After all, if God can cause the
course of events to happen so that man exercising his "free will" can still
do exactly the thing God wants to be done, then God can similarly hide here.

In any case, Science by definition cannot investigate the supernatural.
There may be things science can never explain, and it accepts that
limitation. But the Kansas school board notwithstanding, Science
investigates natural phenomena, natural causes, natural effects. The
supernatural is not in view.

> 4. How can a cynodont evolve into a therapsid? A synapsid?

Actually, if you were to do your research, you would find that cynodonts
are therapsids. A derived branch of them, to be sure, but still from that
line. The therapsids are part of the synapsid group.

So you have it backwards. Not that we are surprised. After all, this
question was probably culled from some creationist web site, and maybe you
thought maybe the terms would be as confusing to others as they are to you?

The following are a list of websites where you can get more information on
this technical question.

And that is as it should be. For petty man to think he can "prove" the
existence of God or "disprove" His existence is ridiculous. He is beyond all
such proofs. The only thing that can be disproved is our own limited
"God-in-the-box" theology in which we assume our descriptions of God are
necessary and sufficient.

> 6. How can Social Darwinism be justified on moral grounds in light of Nazism
> and racism?

As you should know (and doubtless do know, but what do you care?), "Social
Darwinism" is not an accepted sociological theory any more. It was popular
up until the Second World War, but it really had nothing to do with racism
or Nazism.

Racism has been around a long time. I have read sermons by prominent
pre-Darwin theologians who justified racism and slavery on the basis of the
Bible. I have read sermons on social order by pre-Darwin theologians who
justified social inequality on the basis of the Bible.

It seems that Social Darwinism and certain Christian doctrines had a lot in
common at certain times!

The fact is that man will reach for what is handy to justify what they are
doing. You do the same thing. I am quite convinced that you are aware of the
truth in certain areas, but you ignore it because it doesn't fit your
theology. And you wind up blaming God for your bad behavior.

"Evolutionists", by the way, do not endorse "Social Darwinism". And just
because "Nature" behaves a certain way does not mean that we want it that
way. So Scientists work with natural phenomena to frustrate nature! We do
that with vaccines, medical treatments, improvements in technology and
infrastructure. Life for us does not need to be cruel and brutish. We can
rise above our circumstances -- and we attempt to do so.

However, I find it interesting that Fundamentalism is in many ways a
repackaging of "Social Darwinism". After all, Fundamentalism is not
concerned with addressing inequalities, but with preserving inequalities! It
is not concerned with the rights of the masses, but with preserving power
with the wealthy or the "right". It believes that the Strong should rule
over the Weak.

I beg you to open your eyes. Read. Study. Understand. All of your questions
above have been answered many times over. You still ask the same ones! You
seem to think that nothing can ever answer your questions, so you refuse to
recognize where they have been!

In that way, you are as thoroughly blind to the truth as you imagine your
adversaries to be.

Yet there need be no conflict between Faith and Science. And the more I
learn about both, the less real conflict I find. I am glad to be a
Christian. I am grateful I am no longer a Fundamentalist.